


One Life To Live (Is Not Just a Soap Opera)

by Missy



Category: Happy Death Day (Movies)
Genre: Black Comedy, Character Study, Gen, Humor, Post-Canon, Post-Time Loop, Reclaiming Your Mortality, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27177970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: It takes her awhile to remember that speeding cars can kill her now.Or: Tree, post-Happy Death Day 2 U.
Relationships: Carter Davis/Theresa "Tree" Gelbman
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	One Life To Live (Is Not Just a Soap Opera)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



It took her a few weeks to remember that she couldn’t dart out into traffic anymore. The car would hit her this time – would kill her – and she wouldn’t wake up back in bed and ready for a fresh do-over afterward.

For Tree it would be hilarious if it wasn’t her life. But this was her life, and she’s been spending it running between the DARPA project, her classes, and dates with Carter. Who still wasn’t cool with the DARPA project but then again, Tree had learned that no matter how much you loved a person, you had to learn how to respect their limits.

***

They went skydiving together for the heck of it (someone gave them free tickets, and she made a Final Destination joke that was really inappropriate). She had to remember to actually open the chute when they jumped out of the plane. Tree tried to play this off as carelessness and having a lot on her mind, but Carter threw her a fear-filled, worried look. He couldn’t save her if she forgot to rip the cord in time.

She had to think of the people who cared about her – and they did exist – when she did something daring. She had to resist the temptation to throw herself in the lion’s cage to pet the big furry creatures on the head, to risk sticking her hand into a popping fire to retrieve a marshmallow she’d been roasting, to walk into a fist fight to save a friend.

Her bones could break down. Whatever happened after she died this time, it would be the last thing to _ever_ happen to her. 

She had no memories of what lay between each life she lived. And at the end of the day, Tree didn’t want to find out what was on the other end of that yawning, beckoning abyss for a very long time.


End file.
